Due to the constant never ending supply of "cool stuff" happening in Aerospace these days I'm creating this thread to consolidate posts every time something new comes along. Please feel free to add random information if its relevant. So to start things off here is the SpaceX Dragon launch coming up shortly, I'll be following up afterwards to see how it all goes.

Excellent, that's the one I was thinking of. It's hard not to get a sense of impending doom as that plays.Here is a pretty cool view of the latest ISS crew arrival, this is the roughest docking I have ever watched.

This is some interesting "space & stuff", the theory on the cause is great reading, some fascinating physics going on there.
from, http://www.nasa.gov/feature/jupiter-s-great-red-spot-likely-a-massive-heat-source
NASA's Juno spacecraft, which recently arrived at Jupiter, will have several opportunities during its
20-month mission to observe the Great Red Spot and the turbulent region surrounding it. Juno will
peer hundreds of miles downward into the atmosphere with its microwave radiometer, which passively
senses heat coming from within the planet. This capability will enable Juno to reveal the deep
structure of the Great Red Spot, along with other prominent Jovian features, such as the colorful
cloud bands.

The study, in the July 27 issue of the journal Nature, concludes that the storm in the Great Red Spot
produces two kinds of turbulent energy waves that collide and heat the upper atmosphere. Gravity
waves are much like how a guitar string moves when plucked, while acoustic waves are compressions
of the air (sound waves). Heating in the upper atmosphere 500 miles (800 kilometers) above the
Great Red Spot is thought to be caused by a combination of these two wave types crashing, like
ocean waves on a beach.

"When CX330 was last viewed in August 2015, it was still outbursting.
Astronomers plan to continue studying the object, including with future
telescopes that could view it in other wavelengths of light."

"Most puzzling to astronomers, FU Orionis and the rare objects like it -- there
are only about 10 of them -- are located in star-forming regions. Young stars
usually form and feed from their surrounding gas and dust-rich regions in
star-forming clouds. By contrast, the region of star formation closest to CX330
is over a thousand light-years away."

Manning said SpaceX has already shared data from their Falcon 9 booster stages, which fire up their
Merlin engines for a series of re-entry and landing burns. The rocket conducts those maneuvers while
flying at up to 4,000 mph (6,300 kilometers per hour), depending on each launch’s specific profile.

We find out that, indeed, it’s possible to do, to fly your engines backwards, and all the mysteries we
thought about flying your engines backwards have really gone away," Manning said. "One of the things
we thought is, so what are the dynamics? What is the flow? Is the vehicle going to be batted around by
this high-speed flow? Well, it turns out that thrusters actually produce a vacuum bubble around the
vehicle, and it looks terrible on the outside... But it looks great on the inside."

I hadn't heard of this one, should make a nice companion for JWST
From, http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/nasas-tess-the-next-exoplanet-explorer
Among the stars TESS will observe, small bright dwarf stars are ideal for planet identification,
explained Joshua Pepper, co-chair of the TESS Target Selection Working Group. One of the TESS
science goals is to find Earth- and super-Earth-sized planets. These are difficult to discover
because of their small size compared to their host stars, but focusing TESS on smaller stars makes
finding these small planets much easier. This is because the fraction of the host star's light that a
planet blocks is proportional to the planet’s size.

"Along the way, the rover that loves to rove has
broken robot records and established new
milestones, including finishing the first marathon
and becoming the longest-lived robot on another
planet years after surviving a planet encircling dust
storm she wasn’t designed to survive. The MER
ops team in the process has become the tightest,
most experienced Mars rover team on Earth. And
now the mission is getting ready to embark on
what ultimately may be the most exciting
adventure of all."

"The rover planners at JPL will drive Opportunity
down steep, rugged slopes, and over more Martian
hills and dales to places where geological features
beckon the scientists, rousing visions of discovery
that dance in their heads. First, the rover has a
little more work to do to wrap the science
campaign in Marathon Valley."

"We saw some higher than expected currents and out
of an abundance of caution we did some diagnostics,"
said Seibert. "With a 12-and-a-half year old rover,
we don't cowboy it if we see something on the drive
train behaving out of bounds."
Marathon Valley.

Quantum com satellites, this is going to catch on fast.
From, http://spaceflight101.com/qss-launch-success/
China sent a ground breaking
scientific experiment into orbit on
Monday to build the foundation for
secure communications technology of
the future.

The Quantum Science Satellite -
nicknamed Micius - is the first
spacecraft to establish quantum
communications between space and
Earth by creating entangled photon
pairs over great distances and testing
the principles of quantum teleportation.